A. We have code. You don't. We make money by selling our code. You don't. We will let you look at the code, but don't touch it. We think this is balanced.
Q: Why did Microsoft decide to highlight the Shared Source Philosophy at this time?
A. We got scared by Open Source.
Q: Is Microsoft's Shared Source Philosophy a Response to Linux?
A. Yep.
Q: What is Microsoft's concern with the GNU General Public License?
A. We can't figure out a way to make money with code covered by the GPL.
Q: How is intellectual property (IP) protection related to innovation? Why should society today rely on IP protection to foster innovation?
A. IP protection works because we can make money off of it. If we couldn't make money, that would really piss us off. Society is a better place when we make money. Innovation is very important, as long as we make money. Basically the pattern is money==good.
Re:The FAQ... (satire, honest)
by
mini+me
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· Score: 4
Hahah, I love this idea, I wonder if Camp Chaos could be convinced to create this?
The way I see it, Bill Gates would be in place of Lars Ulrich telling the story about how the GPL is bad and so on, Steve Balmer would take the place of James Hetfield saying Windows GOOD! Linux BAD! and so forth...
Gates: "Like good afternoon, my name is like Bill Gates from the software giant Microsoft. I'm here today to to talk about open source software."
Balmer: "Open Source BAD!"
Gates: "Yeah so like these open source coders are out to destroy our company and destroy the American way. Open source licences are like a virus or something and they well infect you, and your mother fucking code if you use it. You will also turn into an evil communist if you write open source software."
Balmer: "Communist BAD!"
Gates: "We spend upwards of 24 to 48 hours writing our code and we don't want you open source zealots to steal our hard earned money!"
Balmer: "Money GOOD! Open Source BAD!"
Okay, so the story line isn't great, but I wrote it quickly...
in their business section...
by
crisco
·
· Score: 5
Notice that these pages are in their business section, not MSDN?
Others have pointed out that this is indeed a PR/business strategy, not a technology one. MS is not arguing technology, code quality or any of such, they are pushing that the GPL is bad for business.
MSDN does give away great quantities of source, most of which is example code, not core implementations that can be improved.
Oh, and this is just my opinion, but www.shared-source.com needs some web design help. I think the PHB types that this should be aimed need eyecandy to feel good about the opinions stated. I'll try and throw something together this weekend but I'm sure there are more capable designers that could help.
Chris Cothrun Curator of Chaos
--
Bleh!
Its rather funny because...
by
MeerCat
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· Score: 5
... when Win2K came out, and was breaking all sorts of software, a guy I met from one of the big US investment banks bent my ear for ages about how great Win2K was and how they had no problems with it at all. This seemed a little strange as most investment banks that I've been at run huge amounts of really badly-hacked, badly-behaved, poorly documented in-house programs (you pay big money, you attract every wide-boy for miles around).
When I quizzed him in detail he finally admitted that this was because they had the FULL source code from Microsoft and were patching (or at least flagging) their own fixes as they hit problems and giving these back to MS to integrate.
But he wouldn't trust Linux, or any Open-Source model, and neither would MS....
Seems some people can have their cake, and eat it, and deny there was any cake there anyway
T
-- I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered. - George Best
Sorry. The GPL is viral and a clever choice of words for the spinmasters at Microsoft. Watch out for jabs like this in the future. They will say the correct thing but use charged words to sway the debate. A very good tactic.
Microsoft is entirely correct to say the GLP is viral because all derived works must also have the code to given away - so the orignal code infects any following work. Whether this is good or bad is left to the debate that is occurring now.
No, the GPL is not viral. It does not leap from unwilling host to unwilling host; your code will not suddenly come down with GPLitis out of the blue.
If a genetic metaphor for creating a derived work is desired, consider the GPL as a dominant gene. It takes a deliberate propagative act to create a "child" that's GPLed; but having decided to "mate" your code with GPLed code you know the result will be GPLed - just as someone who carries
two recessive genes for a trait and mates with someone carrying two dominant genes knows that the child will inherit the dominant trait.
For example, if a blue-eyed woman mates with a man whose ancestors have been brown eyed for umpteen generations back, if I recall my biology correctly she's going to have a brown-eyed baby. (Barring mutation, crossover, etcetera, which is beyond the scope of this metaphor, okay?) If she doesn't want a brown-eyed kid, she's free to seek out another father. If you don't want your result to be GPL'd, you're free to seek out other code to derive your program from.
The metaphor is not perfect, in that such a child would still be a carrier of the recessive gene, however it's a damn sight closer than "viral".
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
-- Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog You cannot wash away blood with blood
Gee, whiz. Where have I been for the "past several months" while "people have been talking about source code." This new-fangled technology gets my head in a spin, glad Microsoft could explain it to me.
Fundamentally innovation can be broken down into two parts: discovery and implementation.
1) Discover something that someone else is doing that looks like it might make money.
2) Implement a less featureful version of it, give it away for free and start charging around version 5.0 once we've eliminated the original company.
From gdict:
1. The act of innovating; introduction of something new, in customs, rites, etc. --Dryden.
I think we're closing in on the disparity between the MS definition of Innovation and the one the rest of the world uses. (So yes, what I could stomach of their shared source FAQ was somewhat insightful.)
As a side note I didn't notice them enumerating what source would be shared, nor what you could do with it, but the meaty parts of the page may have come after the gag reflex kicked in. Next time I hit a MS web page I'll be sure to take a dramamine first.
--
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Trust me, they aren't missing the point. They find magnificent ways to couch ideas that they don't like in a negative or deterring way.
For example, if you want to rip a cd using windows media player, it defaults to having that security encryption crap turned on--meaning you can't play the ripped music on other computers (without breaking the encryption).
If you go through the help and the menus, looking for some way to turn it off, you are going to have to look pretty carefully. It is in there, but they disguise the meaning. You turn it off by turning off "License Managment". The help file description of this is (paraphrased): "If you turn off license managment, and try to download a song to a portable player, Windows Media won't copy the license file over."
While this is true, it won't copy the license file over, it is only true because the music file is not encrypted anymore and doesn't need a license! Whereas the helpfile text sort of implies that you still need a license to play the music, but now you have to manually copy said license over to the portable player.
The GPL license is not viral, and any sense in which you claim that it is becomes mere FUD and is just plain wrong. This is the height of Microsoft marketing trying to associate evil with the GPL.
Under copyright law you have no intrinsic rights to distribute anyone else's copyright. If you make a derivative work, you have no intrinsic right to distribute that derivative work. You may only distribute derivative works if all authors of copyright agree on terms.
Under the GPL, the situation is substantially improved. You can distribute someone else's copyright. You can make and distribute a derivative work, with the added proviso that all the work must be released under the same license.
Basically, Microsoft calls this viral because they would rather the author of a derivative work have ALL copyrights to the derivative and the original work. This is the BSD license. This is even more rights to the recipient of a copyrighted work.
But please remember that GPL programs still give you as a software user MORE rights than you have intrinsically. The GPL has some protection for the community that would prefer if everything were open source, because it restrains any open source (GPLd) program from becoming proprietary. It in effect assigns the intellectual property to the open source (or free software) community. This is what Microsoft is attacking.
The crown jewels for Microsoft are its intellectual property. It is fighting like mad because the GPL gives the free software community the same protection of its intellectual property that Microsoft has of its own. It is not a business model - it is a community software model.
How do you think accountants, lawyers or architetcts get paid? They are paid for their advice, their professionalism and their knowledge. Do you think you visit your lawyer to "buy" a contract?
The entire software industry needs to get off its buff and become more professional. This is about SAVING your JOBS, should you actually WANT to be regarded as a professional software expert, rather than as a code-monkey. When companies want computer expertise they should know that theere are people who can and will support them. That person is you. Or would you rather be a code-mopnkey. to be retired as soon as cheaper labor comes along.
Put it another way, why should the CEO of a company pay you to code when he could too, having also learnt programming during his college days. Simply becuase you can code better?
Re:At last! now I can ditch Linux and all the bigo
by
(void*)
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· Score: 4
And mderators, how is this insightful? How could one verify that your code is not trojaned simply by inspecting the source, but not being able to compile it?
Guess what? Admission of the "comfort factor" argument is really discrediting yourself. Maybe you'd like to turn around and say "well you didn't check the source for your GPLed programs too". And guess what? I didn't.
Becuase having the source is not just about being paranoid about trojans. It is about having a reference, having the ability to cross-check the code for correctness when I have to. Being able to fix it, and being able to make it better, and give it back.
For any one of these reasons, "Shared Suorce" is not enough. Keep your paranioa to yourself.
Well said, I like how you compared the licenses. I agree with everything you said, but would like to especially stress a point that you hinted at that I personally believe is not said enough, if ever. BSD License=more freedom to the immediately direct enduser, but possibly less freedom to the rest of the world. GPL=less freedom to next immediate user, but a guarantee of that same minimal amount of usability to any and all other eventual users. Somebody could take a BSD license thing, mess with it, and re-release it under the BSD license, and that would have more usability then GPL, but they aren't required to. GPL *guarantees* a certain level of usability to absolutely everybody. Basically BSD is more usable, but also more abusable. I'm not advocating one over the other, simply noting the differences...
Remember Sun's Community Source License? No? Good reason. It was just a lame attempt to respond to the Open Source threat.
The funny thing is that Shared Source, if shared-source.com is to be believed, is worse than source code licenses that MS has used in the past. I'm referring to MFC. There was no prohibition against fixing bugs in MFC and incorporating them into your code. As far as I know, there was no prohibition against telling people how to fix bugs in MFC either. In fact, one of MS's fixes for an MFC bug actually told the user to change the source and rebuild it (although there were several alternatives, and that was listed as the least preferable).
The MFC case just demonstrates that MS, like any other company, will release source to the degree that it makes sense. It just so happens that at this point in time, it doesn't make sense for MS to loosen up their source very much. Let's face it. How many of us, sitting on such a cash cow, would release source?
I'm not suggesting that MS should go OSI compliant. That would be foolish for them. However, it might be a good idea if they made sources available to anyone who wanted them, and made it legal to distribute patches. This kind of distribution doesn't hurt the bottom line of book publishers, who's "source" is naturally open to all. Distributing patches would be analogous to writing reviews. Copyright law is strong enough to protect book publishers, and it would be strong enough to protect MS too.
-- For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
What happened to the LGPL?
by
MongooseCN
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· Score: 5
A lot of people use the LGPL in their software, this allows people to modify source code and sell the final program, as long as they provide the source code of the original LGPLed source (usually a library). Loki does this with all their games with the SDL library. All their games they port are proprietary closed source programs, but they can sell the games with the SDL library packaged with it as long as they allow people free access to the source code of the library.
Ok now I know that Loki owns the SDL library, but other companies can do this too. They can use and modify the SDL library in their programs, provided they give access to the changes they made to the library. "Intellectual property" is preserved in their proprietary section of code while still being required to release changes to the original source back to the community.
Some open source licenses are viral, that is, they require that all derivative works be licensed on the same terms as the original program. These licenses are described as viral because they "infect" derivative programs. Viral licenses vary in how infectious they are, depending on how they define which programs are derivative works.
Good lord! I had no idea running open source software was so dangerous! I mean, what with the liberal news media and their anti-microsoft slant you'd think it was good american programs like, oh, say.. Outlook that had 'viral' problems.. VBS must be open source.
Re:MS Tactic to end reverse-engineering?
by
MrBogus
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· Score: 3
I guess it comes down to what the terms of the source licensing agreement are, and who it's available to. In the past, Microsoft has used source licenses to pick winners in certain product categories and has been sued over that practice.
Excluding "secret API" FUD, your description of Office development are the exact practices that Corel and Lotus have complained about for many years. You can tune your product using OS source, they can't. Will they be able to under "shared source"? Will (say) an IBM developer working on a juicy piece of middleware that MS wants supported on Windows be forbidden to transfer to the Lotus division?
I guess it really comes down to if "shared source" is something new, or just a continuance of MS's existing source license policies.
--
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
"I hate this Slashdot. This hacker zoo. This prison of ideas. This reality, whatever you want to call it, I can't stand it any longer. It's the open source software, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste your filthy free software and every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it."
-- Frylock: That's not a toy!
Master Shake: You say that about everything you own. You should own toys. They're fun.
Microsoft is entirely correct to say the GLP is viral because all derived works...
No. Read that part there. "...all derived works..." It's a bad analogy, because a viral infection is unintentional. Making a derived work is a very deliberate act.
It's more akin to an inoculation where you affect an entire system purposefully. People don't say, "oh no, I'm infected with the polio vaccine; now I can't get polio. Help, I'm being repressed." They took the vaccine because they intended to effect themselves in that way.
-- -- dR.fuZZo
It sounds like MTV's new marketing campaign
by
abe+ferlman
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· Score: 3
Microsoft has a powerful rhetorical sledgehammer with the word "viral", which conjures up images of disease and hacked, crashing computers. Although going by the any press is good press dictum many people will hear this and learn it's not a bad thing, it's still important to formulate a counter-rhetoric to this feint.
How can we extend the analogy? The GPL is to a virus as M$'s EULA's are to shackles? The analogy won't extend properly because it's based on a faulty premise- that virii are all bad by definition.
I propose the following: free software is more like the polio vaccine. When asked if he was going to patent the polio vaccine, Dr. Jonas Salk said that would be 'like patenting the sun'. Free software doesn't restrict freedom like a virus that crashes your computer or destroys your body, it preserves freedom by making sure that no one can take away the rights you've got, just as the polio vaccine prevents polio from ravaging the body. So which one's the vaccine and which one's the virus- that's the question we should be asking.
I think the metaphor is apt and ought to embarass Micro$oft a little.
Bryguy
ps- feel free to use this metaphor. It's free as in speech.
I like this quote from the FAQ...
by
sdo1
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· Score: 4
The wide use of Linux code and its licensing under the GPL presents a real threat to businesses and individuals who wish to obtain value from their intellectual property
IE, Microsoft. To the end users, it represents a real benefit.
-S
-- ---
What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Microsoft supports BSD licensing?
by
wrinkledshirt
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· Score: 4
Q: What is Microsoft's concern with the GNU General Public License?
A: There is no question that the GPL is a complicated license that has led to a great deal of confusion. For the sake of clarity, we wish to reiterate our basic points in regard to the GPL and other OSS licenses.
Some open source licenses are viral, that is, they require that all derivative works be licensed on the same terms as the original program. These licenses are described as viral because they "infect" derivative programs. Viral licenses vary in how infectious they are, depending on how they define which programs are derivative works. However, one of the dominant open source license-the GPL-is the most infectious. It attempts to subject any work that includes GPL-licensed code to the GPL. Thus, if a government or business uses even a few lines of GPL-licensed code in a program, and then re-distributes that program to others, it would be required to provide the program under the GPL. And, under the GPL, the recipient must be given access to the source code and the freedom to redistribute the program on a royalty-free basis.
Open source licenses that are non-viral, on the other hand, permit software developers to integrate the licensed software and its source code into new products, often with much less significant restrictions. A prominent example of this type of license is the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) license. The BSD license allows programmers to use, modify, and redistribute the source code and binary code of the original software program, with or without modification. Moreover, programs containing code subject to the BSD license are subject to only limited obligations imposed by that license. This type of license gives users freedom to incorporate their own changes and redistribute them, without requiring them to publish the new source code or allow royalty-free redistribution.
Q: We're confused. Does this mean that this is the model that you're going to be using for your own shared source strategies?
A: Ha ha, no. We just wanted to take this opportunity to use certain words like "viral", a word which we unintentionally made popular, against our primary competition.
Q: Oh. So you have no plans to release your source code free for public use for people to take and incorporate into their projects how they please.
A: Of course not! What sort of fools do you take us for?
Q: So your opinion of the GPL and BSD models and licenses is really irrelevent.
A: Er... yes. But don't tell anyone, 'kay?
--
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
However, one of the dominant open source license--the GPL--is the most infectious.
Now, Personally, I'm more of a BSD licence guy, myself, but Microsoft is totally missing the point here. Of course it's viral. It's supposed to be. The GPL's viral properties keep people from being able to steal GPLed code, in the exact same way that MS will try to keep people from stealing their code. MS treats this viral property as if it were a great evil communist conspiracy, and they need to grow up. The GPL prevents code from being reused without a price, the same way that MS will do the same to anyone who uses any of their shared source.
The difference, in fact, is that the GPL will give you the choice to use the code, even with the "Viral" license. MS will not let anyone use their code, instead going for their 'Code Under Glass' philosophy. Obviously, there's no questioning which one leads to true 'innovation'.
--
When encryption is outlawed, ?o'AZ-,++o+i++##4AoA+-/-C++bI+/.+~
MS Tactic to end reverse-engineering?
by
McSpew
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· Score: 5
Don't forget that the holy grail of reverse engineering is the Chinese wall between the guy who analyzes the original product and writes the spec documents and the guy(s) who then read the spec documents and design the compatible/replacement product.
What am I getting at?
The fundamental requirement for the guys who create the competing/replacement/compatible product is that they must never have viewed any of the original source (if it's software) or viewed the original drawings or workings if it's a machine. This is known as finding "virgins" to do the work. If MS spreads its source code wider via this "shared source" concept, they'll still have all the copyright protection they could ask for and now it will be much harder to find virgins who can work on competing/compatible products.
Since university students are a huge part of the open source community, MS may be intentionally polluting the community by allowing universities (and their CIS or Computer Engineering students) to see the source to MS operating systems.
Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but I have a hard time believing Microsoft wouldn't resort to such tactics if they thought they could get away with them.
I've got an idea for the guys at Think Geek regarding this. You know those red and gold (sometimes red and silver) aluminum Chairman Mao badges
(e.g. seen here) the Chinese had back during the Cultural Revolution? Why not make one with the GNU gnu on it instead of Mao? Or what about Tux? Man, that would be cool!
And no I'm not kidding or trolling. I do believe communism, in theory, is a good idea, and that free software is the only example of communist-like principles done right.
Slashdot Mirror
Q: What is Microsoft's Shared Source Philosophy?
A. We have code. You don't. We make money by selling our code. You don't. We will let you look at the code, but don't touch it. We think this is balanced.
Q: Why did Microsoft decide to highlight the Shared Source Philosophy at this time?
A. We got scared by Open Source.
Q: Is Microsoft's Shared Source Philosophy a Response to Linux?
A. Yep.
Q: What is Microsoft's concern with the GNU General Public License?
A. We can't figure out a way to make money with code covered by the GPL.
Q: How is intellectual property (IP) protection related to innovation? Why should society today rely on IP protection to foster innovation?
A. IP protection works because we can make money off of it. If we couldn't make money, that would really piss us off. Society is a better place when we make money. Innovation is very important, as long as we make money. Basically the pattern is money==good.
Others have pointed out that this is indeed a PR/business strategy, not a technology one. MS is not arguing technology, code quality or any of such, they are pushing that the GPL is bad for business.
MSDN does give away great quantities of source, most of which is example code, not core implementations that can be improved.
Oh, and this is just my opinion, but www.shared-source.com needs some web design help. I think the PHB types that this should be aimed need eyecandy to feel good about the opinions stated. I'll try and throw something together this weekend but I'm sure there are more capable designers that could help.
Chris Cothrun
Curator of Chaos
Bleh!
... when Win2K came out, and was breaking all sorts of software, a guy I met from one of the big US investment banks bent my ear for ages about how great Win2K was and how they had no problems with it at all. This seemed a little strange as most investment banks that I've been at run huge amounts of really badly-hacked, badly-behaved, poorly documented in-house programs (you pay big money, you attract every wide-boy for miles around).
When I quizzed him in detail he finally admitted that this was because they had the FULL source code from Microsoft and were patching (or at least flagging) their own fixes as they hit problems and giving these back to MS to integrate.
But he wouldn't trust Linux, or any Open-Source model, and neither would MS....
Seems some people can have their cake, and eat it, and deny there was any cake there anyway
T
I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered. - George Best
Microsoft is entirely correct to say the GLP is viral because all derived works must also have the code to given away - so the orignal code infects any following work. Whether this is good or bad is left to the debate that is occurring now.
No, the GPL is not viral. It does not leap from unwilling host to unwilling host; your code will not suddenly come down with GPLitis out of the blue.
If a genetic metaphor for creating a derived work is desired, consider the GPL as a dominant gene. It takes a deliberate propagative act to create a "child" that's GPLed; but having decided to "mate" your code with GPLed code you know the result will be GPLed - just as someone who carries two recessive genes for a trait and mates with someone carrying two dominant genes knows that the child will inherit the dominant trait.
For example, if a blue-eyed woman mates with a man whose ancestors have been brown eyed for umpteen generations back, if I recall my biology correctly she's going to have a brown-eyed baby. (Barring mutation, crossover, etcetera, which is beyond the scope of this metaphor, okay?) If she doesn't want a brown-eyed kid, she's free to seek out another father. If you don't want your result to be GPL'd, you're free to seek out other code to derive your program from.
The metaphor is not perfect, in that such a child would still be a carrier of the recessive gene, however it's a damn sight closer than "viral".
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
---
Gee, whiz. Where have I been for the "past several months" while "people have been talking about source code." This new-fangled technology gets my head in a spin, glad Microsoft could explain it to me.
bugger.net | MunkAndPhyber.com
1) Discover something that someone else is doing that looks like it might make money.
2) Implement a less featureful version of it, give it away for free and start charging around version 5.0 once we've eliminated the original company.
From gdict:
1. The act of innovating; introduction of something new, in customs, rites, etc. --Dryden.
I think we're closing in on the disparity between the MS definition of Innovation and the one the rest of the world uses. (So yes, what I could stomach of their shared source FAQ was somewhat insightful.)
As a side note I didn't notice them enumerating what source would be shared, nor what you could do with it, but the meaty parts of the page may have come after the gag reflex kicked in. Next time I hit a MS web page I'll be sure to take a dramamine first.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
but Microsoft is totally missing the point here
Trust me, they aren't missing the point. They find magnificent ways to couch ideas that they don't like in a negative or deterring way.
For example, if you want to rip a cd using windows media player, it defaults to having that security encryption crap turned on--meaning you can't play the ripped music on other computers (without breaking the encryption).
If you go through the help and the menus, looking for some way to turn it off, you are going to have to look pretty carefully. It is in there, but they disguise the meaning. You turn it off by turning off "License Managment". The help file description of this is (paraphrased): "If you turn off license managment, and try to download a song to a portable player, Windows Media won't copy the license file over."
While this is true, it won't copy the license file over, it is only true because the music file is not encrypted anymore and doesn't need a license! Whereas the helpfile text sort of implies that you still need a license to play the music, but now you have to manually copy said license over to the portable player.
It is almost an art the way MS does this stuff.
Indeed. Sounds like someone over at Something Awful needs to whip up another of those war posters:
"When you download Microsoft,
you're downloading COMMUNISM!"
[er, warning, attention: humor attempted above.]
The GPL license is not viral, and any sense in which you claim that it is becomes mere FUD and is just plain wrong. This is the height of Microsoft marketing trying to associate evil with the GPL.
Under copyright law you have no intrinsic rights to distribute anyone else's copyright. If you make a derivative work, you have no intrinsic right to distribute that derivative work. You may only distribute derivative works if all authors of copyright agree on terms.
Under the GPL, the situation is substantially improved. You can distribute someone else's copyright. You can make and distribute a derivative work, with the added proviso that all the work must be released under the same license.
Basically, Microsoft calls this viral because they would rather the author of a derivative work have ALL copyrights to the derivative and the original work. This is the BSD license. This is even more rights to the recipient of a copyrighted work.
But please remember that GPL programs still give you as a software user MORE rights than you have intrinsically. The GPL has some protection for the community that would prefer if everything were open source, because it restrains any open source (GPLd) program from becoming proprietary. It in effect assigns the intellectual property to the open source (or free software) community. This is what Microsoft is attacking.
The crown jewels for Microsoft are its intellectual property. It is fighting like mad because the GPL gives the free software community the same protection of its intellectual property that Microsoft has of its own. It is not a business model - it is a community software model.
The entire software industry needs to get off its buff and become more professional. This is about SAVING your JOBS, should you actually WANT to be regarded as a professional software expert, rather than as a code-monkey. When companies want computer expertise they should know that theere are people who can and will support them. That person is you. Or would you rather be a code-mopnkey. to be retired as soon as cheaper labor comes along.
Put it another way, why should the CEO of a company pay you to code when he could too, having also learnt programming during his college days. Simply becuase you can code better?
Guess what? Admission of the "comfort factor" argument is really discrediting yourself. Maybe you'd like to turn around and say "well you didn't check the source for your GPLed programs too". And guess what? I didn't.
Becuase having the source is not just about being paranoid about trojans. It is about having a reference, having the ability to cross-check the code for correctness when I have to. Being able to fix it, and being able to make it better, and give it back.
For any one of these reasons, "Shared Suorce" is not enough. Keep your paranioa to yourself.
Well said, I like how you compared the licenses. I agree with everything you said, but would like to especially stress a point that you hinted at that I personally believe is not said enough, if ever. BSD License=more freedom to the immediately direct enduser, but possibly less freedom to the rest of the world. GPL=less freedom to next immediate user, but a guarantee of that same minimal amount of usability to any and all other eventual users. Somebody could take a BSD license thing, mess with it, and re-release it under the BSD license, and that would have more usability then GPL, but they aren't required to. GPL *guarantees* a certain level of usability to absolutely everybody. Basically BSD is more usable, but also more abusable. I'm not advocating one over the other, simply noting the differences...
Remember Sun's Community Source License? No? Good reason. It was just a lame attempt to respond to the Open Source threat.
The funny thing is that Shared Source, if shared-source.com is to be believed, is worse than source code licenses that MS has used in the past. I'm referring to MFC. There was no prohibition against fixing bugs in MFC and incorporating them into your code. As far as I know, there was no prohibition against telling people how to fix bugs in MFC either. In fact, one of MS's fixes for an MFC bug actually told the user to change the source and rebuild it (although there were several alternatives, and that was listed as the least preferable).
The MFC case just demonstrates that MS, like any other company, will release source to the degree that it makes sense. It just so happens that at this point in time, it doesn't make sense for MS to loosen up their source very much. Let's face it. How many of us, sitting on such a cash cow, would release source?
I'm not suggesting that MS should go OSI compliant. That would be foolish for them. However, it might be a good idea if they made sources available to anyone who wanted them, and made it legal to distribute patches. This kind of distribution doesn't hurt the bottom line of book publishers, who's "source" is naturally open to all. Distributing patches would be analogous to writing reviews. Copyright law is strong enough to protect book publishers, and it would be strong enough to protect MS too.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
A lot of people use the LGPL in their software, this allows people to modify source code and sell the final program, as long as they provide the source code of the original LGPLed source (usually a library). Loki does this with all their games with the SDL library. All their games they port are proprietary closed source programs, but they can sell the games with the SDL library packaged with it as long as they allow people free access to the source code of the library.
Ok now I know that Loki owns the SDL library, but other companies can do this too. They can use and modify the SDL library in their programs, provided they give access to the changes they made to the library. "Intellectual property" is preserved in their proprietary section of code while still being required to release changes to the original source back to the community.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Some open source licenses are viral, that is, they require that all derivative works be licensed on the same terms as the original program. These licenses are described as viral because they "infect" derivative programs. Viral licenses vary in how infectious they are, depending on how they define which programs are derivative works.
Good lord! I had no idea running open source software was so dangerous! I mean, what with the liberal news media and their anti-microsoft slant you'd think it was good american programs like, oh, say.. Outlook that had 'viral' problems.. VBS must be open source.
air and light and time and space
I guess it comes down to what the terms of the source licensing agreement are, and who it's available to. In the past, Microsoft has used source licenses to pick winners in certain product categories and has been sued over that practice.
Excluding "secret API" FUD, your description of Office development are the exact practices that Corel and Lotus have complained about for many years. You can tune your product using OS source, they can't. Will they be able to under "shared source"? Will (say) an IBM developer working on a juicy piece of middleware that MS wants supported on Windows be forbidden to transfer to the Lotus division?
I guess it really comes down to if "shared source" is something new, or just a continuance of MS's existing source license policies.
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
"I hate this Slashdot. This hacker zoo. This prison of ideas. This reality, whatever you want to call it, I can't stand it any longer. It's the open source software, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste your filthy free software and every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it."
Frylock: That's not a toy!
Master Shake: You say that about everything you own. You should own toys. They're fun.
In fact Microsoft marketing is Viral, because it precludes the options of other solutions, where GPL allows for as many solutions as you desire.
Correctly identifying the infection verse the AntiBodies is very important
GPL acts as an AntiBody against certain infections.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Microsoft is entirely correct to say the GLP is viral because all derived works...
No. Read that part there. "...all derived works..." It's a bad analogy, because a viral infection is unintentional. Making a derived work is a very deliberate act.
It's more akin to an inoculation where you affect an entire system purposefully. People don't say, "oh no, I'm infected with the polio vaccine; now I can't get polio. Help, I'm being repressed." They took the vaccine because they intended to effect themselves in that way.
-- dR.fuZZo
I'm Itchy. Do I have GPL?
Bryguy
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Microsoft has a powerful rhetorical sledgehammer with the word "viral", which conjures up images of disease and hacked, crashing computers. Although going by the any press is good press dictum many people will hear this and learn it's not a bad thing, it's still important to formulate a counter-rhetoric to this feint.
How can we extend the analogy? The GPL is to a virus as M$'s EULA's are to shackles? The analogy won't extend properly because it's based on a faulty premise- that virii are all bad by definition.
I propose the following: free software is more like the polio vaccine. When asked if he was going to patent the polio vaccine, Dr. Jonas Salk said that would be 'like patenting the sun'. Free software doesn't restrict freedom like a virus that crashes your computer or destroys your body, it preserves freedom by making sure that no one can take away the rights you've got, just as the polio vaccine prevents polio from ravaging the body. So which one's the vaccine and which one's the virus- that's the question we should be asking.
I think the metaphor is apt and ought to embarass Micro$oft a little.
Bryguy
ps- feel free to use this metaphor. It's free as in speech.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
IE, Microsoft. To the end users, it represents a real benefit.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Q: What is Microsoft's concern with the GNU General Public License?
A: There is no question that the GPL is a complicated license that has led to a great deal of confusion. For the sake of clarity, we wish to reiterate our basic points in regard to the GPL and other OSS licenses.
Some open source licenses are viral, that is, they require that all derivative works be licensed on the same terms as the original program. These licenses are described as viral because they "infect" derivative programs. Viral licenses vary in how infectious they are, depending on how they define which programs are derivative works. However, one of the dominant open source license-the GPL-is the most infectious. It attempts to subject any work that includes GPL-licensed code to the GPL. Thus, if a government or business uses even a few lines of GPL-licensed code in a program, and then re-distributes that program to others, it would be required to provide the program under the GPL. And, under the GPL, the recipient must be given access to the source code and the freedom to redistribute the program on a royalty-free basis.
Open source licenses that are non-viral, on the other hand, permit software developers to integrate the licensed software and its source code into new products, often with much less significant restrictions. A prominent example of this type of license is the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) license. The BSD license allows programmers to use, modify, and redistribute the source code and binary code of the original software program, with or without modification. Moreover, programs containing code subject to the BSD license are subject to only limited obligations imposed by that license. This type of license gives users freedom to incorporate their own changes and redistribute them, without requiring them to publish the new source code or allow royalty-free redistribution.
Q: We're confused. Does this mean that this is the model that you're going to be using for your own shared source strategies?
A: Ha ha, no. We just wanted to take this opportunity to use certain words like "viral", a word which we unintentionally made popular, against our primary competition.
Q: Oh. So you have no plans to release your source code free for public use for people to take and incorporate into their projects how they please.
A: Of course not! What sort of fools do you take us for?
Q: So your opinion of the GPL and BSD models and licenses is really irrelevent.
A: Er... yes. But don't tell anyone, 'kay?
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
However, one of the dominant open source license--the GPL--is the most infectious.
Now, Personally, I'm more of a BSD licence guy, myself, but Microsoft is totally missing the point here. Of course it's viral. It's supposed to be. The GPL's viral properties keep people from being able to steal GPLed code, in the exact same way that MS will try to keep people from stealing their code. MS treats this viral property as if it were a great evil communist conspiracy, and they need to grow up. The GPL prevents code from being reused without a price, the same way that MS will do the same to anyone who uses any of their shared source.
The difference, in fact, is that the GPL will give you the choice to use the code, even with the "Viral" license. MS will not let anyone use their code, instead going for their 'Code Under Glass' philosophy. Obviously, there's no questioning which one leads to true 'innovation'.
When encryption is outlawed, ?o'AZ-,++o+i++##4AoA+-/-C++bI+/.+~
Don't forget that the holy grail of reverse engineering is the Chinese wall between the guy who analyzes the original product and writes the spec documents and the guy(s) who then read the spec documents and design the compatible/replacement product.
What am I getting at?
The fundamental requirement for the guys who create the competing/replacement/compatible product is that they must never have viewed any of the original source (if it's software) or viewed the original drawings or workings if it's a machine. This is known as finding "virgins" to do the work. If MS spreads its source code wider via this "shared source" concept, they'll still have all the copyright protection they could ask for and now it will be much harder to find virgins who can work on competing/compatible products.
Since university students are a huge part of the open source community, MS may be intentionally polluting the community by allowing universities (and their CIS or Computer Engineering students) to see the source to MS operating systems.
Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but I have a hard time believing Microsoft wouldn't resort to such tactics if they thought they could get away with them.
And no I'm not kidding or trolling. I do believe communism, in theory, is a good idea, and that free software is the only example of communist-like principles done right.
--
"Fuck your mama."